By Our Love

Sep 11, 2021

True humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

- C.S. Lewis

The last two weeks have reminded us how important it is, that in all circumstances, we choose to show God’s love. We are uniquely different and can learn and grow from one another. We do not have to be the same, but do need to respect and embrace our differences! Bottom line - LOVE wins in the end!

I spoke to our middle schoolers last weekend about this. I told them it can be difficult to come to church or a Table Group when you see what someone in the group posts on social media or the way they treat others in the group. And yes, some of them are just weird! We might get a chuckle thinking back to our awkward middle school days, but it isn’t a lot different for adults. We tend to look at what is wrong with everyone else, while elevating our opinion of ourselves!

As Pastor Ken said this past weekend, there are 100 “one anothers” in 94 verses in the Bible. Thirty percent are on unity, thirty percent are on love, fifteen percent are on humility, and the remainder are miscellaneous topics.

So what does it mean to be unified, show love and walk in humility INSIDE of the church? Pastor Ken shared seven ways to embrace greater things through specific ‘one anothers’. The one I want to focus on is Romans 12:10 - “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.“ In the English Standard Version, it says to “Outdo one another in showing honor.”

Pastor Ken broke down what it means to be devoted (philostorgos - family and brotherly love), so I want to take a deeper look at the word “honor” also in verse 10. The Greek word in this verse for honor is “time” (e is pronounced as long a). It’s a verb, and means: esteem (especially of the highest degree), or the dignity itself, honour, precious, price.

It means we place others above ourselves. We work side by side, but we always let those we are working with go first at lunch, through the door, etc. When we disagree on a theological topic, we respectfully agree to disagree and honor the other person by not gossiping about them later. (Remember, gossip is verbal pornography!)

What makes the church work so beautifully is our diversity! Face it - we’re all weird!

Let’s do our part to make The Church at RB a beautiful example of Jesus’ love, both in our neighborhood and on Sunday mornings or in our Table Groups.

Take a minute and read I Corinthians 12:12-26. Go on! In this passage, Paul is instructing the church how to live in love, unity, and humility by embracing our different spiritual gifts. Verses 21:26:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

When we come together and are willing to get in the “messy middle” with those in our church, we bring honor to people and glory to God!

As I write this, I’m thinking of the five couples that have become our very best friends over the last 25 years. We’ve celebrated the best of times (graduations, weddings, and ‘big’ birthdays) and the most difficult (life altering diagnosis for a grandchild, aging and death of parents, cancer). Even recently, during a zoom call, we had to agree to disagree on a theological issue! We are not alike by any means. But we deeply love and honor each other and, at the end of the day, choose unity. Why do I tell you this? Our friendships all began at the Church at Carmel Mountain/RB! As a matter of a fact, everything I value deeply relationally is in this church. CRB is my family!

Let’s make an effort going into this fall and the kickoff of new Table Groups to see how we can come together to live in unity so we can be a bright light to those we serve outside of the walls!